Sea shepherd is a whaling activists boat or something, and the Something Maru is a whale destroying floating factory. One wants the other to stop, the other wants to carry on to eat delicious whale flesh.

"Ram" seems a bit strong however.. A ram to me is a good hard whack, not a low-speed scraping. Granted they are pretty big boats, but still.

So, according to International Whale Protection Organisation (IWPO), there are "whalers" all over the world (http://www.internationalwhaleprotection.org/whalers/). Japan, Iceland and Norway are very unpopular for "commercial whaling". Other conturies are also involved: Greenland, US (Alaska), Russia, Caribbean (Grenadines), Indonesia, Canada, Denmark.

A: There are certain groups of people who do, in fact, rely on whales for local nutritional subsistence such as the people of Lamalera (Indonesia) or certain Inuit communities in remote parts of the Arctic.

However, whale meat is not necessary for food security in any of the nations that kill whales on an industrial scale (Iceland, Norway and Japan). Only a tiny fraction of the populations of these developed nations consumes whale on a regular basis. Much of the meat is stockpiled in cold storage or ground up into fertilizer and animal feed. The rest is sold as a luxury item in markets and restaurants.

That's a thin argument for whale protection, I think? IWPO acknowledges that people in some parts of the world kills whale meet for nutritional subsistence (Do they not have access to any other sources of food? I don't know) where as people in other parts of the world are condemned for not consuming whale on a regular basis (and how often is "regular basis"?)? Have I misread that?

Exploiting endangered animals isn't an action that will impose a good reception. So why aren’t all whalers condemned?

the japanese have a long history of illegal whale hunting of endangered species for 'research' which is bollocks, they hunt illegally in Australian waters, historically the aussie government have pussied out of confrontation,thats why Seashepherd intervened but now they are taking a stronger role.ive been following seashepherd for quite a few years, they are active against namibian seal culls, shark finning and many other battles. the involvment with the faroese holds a bit of contention for me as the 1000's of not yet endangered pilot whales they slaughter (the grind) are used a food source.it seems a shame that its very unfashionable to give a shit about the planet these days, we are NOT the most important animal on the planet as most think.

“People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

aye, fishing and fish as source of food have been a vital part of the culture for some nations including Japan. They eat whale meat; not everyday, it's a rather luxurious gourmet.

For some nations this can be analogous to possession of guns. A lot of countries condemn possession of fire arm and is illegal to own one without a licence. Some countries are quite the contrary; "everyone" has a gun. But they don't get harassed by gun restriction activist (well obviously... poor analogy actually).

It is indeed full of BS for Japan to claim their whaling in the name of research. But the demand for whale meat, or whatever the derivative of sourcing a large number of whale is there. No demand, no supply. If their whaling is "commercial" scale, I wonder where the demand is coming from. There are so many people who can live in such a small collection of islands (i.e. Japan), I may be wrong but I doubt all demand is solely coming from Japan.

purpleandy wrote:Cat amongst the pidgeons time.... one of those groups is going about a legal activity....

Interesting when you look at the vectors of the vessels involved the insistence that the Japs are at fault... not condoning what they are doing AT ALL but in terms of seamanship theres some bloody dodgy wheel work going on there....

whenever sea shepherd have flirted with the law they have been reprimanded, any historic confrontation/collision at sea has been documented and analysed.

purpleandy wrote:Cat amongst the pidgeons time.... one of those groups is going about a legal activity....

who, the whalers? they are targeting protected species (more valuable), they regularly stray into the the Australian economic exclusion zone, where they have been ordered out by the federal government. No one else was doing anything about it.

what ever it is , shark fins, rhino horns, vulnerable wild animals are being pushed further to the edge of extinction.

Japan - twice the UK population on a land mass the size of Wales, of which 70% is mountainous /uninhabitable. This puts a huge strain on land for farming and their quest for protein that cannot be delivered by the land.

I just don't think sea shepherd are going about it the right way. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that. I'm properly over watching rich wankers (peter buffoon and that Muppet off Xena) thinking they can break the law just to exercise their social conscience. And living in NZ, those two make the news a lot. At best, what they do is illegal and at worst it's hypocritical. It is, it was, and it always will be low scale terrorism. This isn't meant to support the Japanese, or whaling, it's just that the whole basis of civilized society is law, and if everyone with an axe to grind believed they had moral justification in stepping outside the law to enforce their point and beliefs then anarchy would ensue.....

CAMWA founding member - the campaign for warm ale. Bloody kiwis stick everything in the fridge........cold ale is just plain wrong.....

now all of these things are looked back on and folk say " i cant believe it used to be like that, why did people put up with that?" will this period of whale hunting be looked back on in the not too distant future in the same way?will we whine "oh we didnt do anything because it was perfectly legal to keep harpooning away so it must be ok " ....i for one dont need a cunt in a suit telling me whats right and wrong.

by continual lobbying, by sanctions, by the UN, even perhaps by the aussie government having the balls to defend it's own waters.... but not by a group of self appointed, self righteous lefties who believe they are equally as above the law as the whalers currently appear to be.

CAMWA founding member - the campaign for warm ale. Bloody kiwis stick everything in the fridge........cold ale is just plain wrong.....

I'm of the opinion we need activists to sort these issues out. These guys do campaign and lobby continuously. It's because everything moves so slow with current political systems (if at all, depending on who is in power) they decide direct action needs to be taken....before the whales are hunted to extinction preferably. Not to mention pining to stop acts of pointless brutality. I do agree with an inuit's right to hunt whales because it is sustainable (there isn't too many of them), and it's how they survive. But we should remember there is a pretty large difference between "lawful" and "illegal". When you have institutions of organised crime in power that allow environmental catastrophe after environmnetal catastrophe to occur because of laws in favour of industrial lobbyist minorities, then you can't say we are being led by a civilised institution. sometimes horns need to be locked... not that I condone pointless violence.

And consider the publicity factor of these acts.

I know it can make you sick listening to some half wit with double standards whining about the end of the world, but that shouldn't make us think activism is a void avenue for an end result, or an act of terrorism. Take the success of the Franklin River campaign in Tassie as a case study:

ATTMFKH wrote:Japan - twice the UK population on a land mass the size of Wales, of which 70% is mountainous /uninhabitable. This puts a huge strain on land for farming and their quest for protein that cannot be delivered by the land.

Wonder what we would do in the UK ?

I see what you're saying here. There are quite a few other sources of sustainable flesh for the blood thirsty Local aquaponics systems for sustainable fish production (I think Japan has a really good sustainable shrimp production system using magroves to recycle nutients) for example, or generally just utilising the principles of biodynamics in food production (current methods are extremley wasteful and unethical). Not to mention the best sources of bioavailable protein (which doesn't give you bowel cancer) come from vegetables and plant material (Hemp especially, but thats another saga), so vegetarianism is alive an well. I'm a flexitarian myself....meat about once every 2/3 weeks. Its more of an addiction/tradition issue, coupled with political/economic/social drudgery putting a strain on achieving "food freedom".